I’m Disabled, Because My Brain Thinks is Dangerous

A Mental Health Monday Post

I’m disabled because my brain thinks sleep is dangerous.

For no apparent reason, on some random day, my brain will decide that it’s in danger. It decides that because it’s in danger, it has to stay vigilant and aware of everything around me. And if you have to stay vigilant, you definitely can’t go to sleep.

What that looks like from the outside is: I just… don’t go to bed. I know I’m tired. I know I need to sleep. I know my body needs rest. But I cannot get myself into the bed. As I’m writing this, I haven’t been in my bed since Sunday morning. I’ve dozed a little in the recliner, but the actual act of getting up and going to bed has felt impossible, like there’s an invisible wall there.

This is the part people don’t see.

I’m not “choosing” to stay up all night because I’m irresponsible or on my phone too much. What you’re not seeing is that the whole night, I’m having an argument in the back of my head. I keep telling myself I have to go to bed, I have to try to sleep, and my brain keeps slamming on the brakes. Sometimes it grabs onto something important coming up – a deadline, an appointment, something I care about – and uses it against me. It makes me worry about it so much that I can’t rest, but also won’t let me actually work on it. So I end up stuck in this awful middle place where I’m not sleeping and I’m not getting anything done either.

It feels like a tug of war that never stops.

The best way I can explain it is with a body example. Imagine you hurt your ankle, and the doctor tells you that you need to gently move your toes up and down so it doesn’t get stiff. You know you have to move it. You want to do what you’re supposed to do. But now imagine someone has put a solid brick wall under your foot, and every time you try to move your toes, a thousand pounds of pressure comes down on that ankle. Technically the “movement” is simple, but in reality you cannot do it. If you keep forcing it, you’re just going to hurt yourself more.

That’s what this kind of insomnia is like for me. From the outside, it probably looks like, “Why doesn’t she just go to bed?” On the inside, it feels like I’m trying to move against a thousand-pound brick wall that my own brain has dropped in front of me.

I’m not telling this story because I have a tidy ending or a perfect coping strategy. I’m telling it because this is part of what my disability actually looks like in real life. Sometimes, I’m disabled because my brain decides that sleep is dangerous, and I pay for it for days.

If this resonates with you, you’re not lazy and you’re not making it up. Your brain can be a real barrier, just as real as a cast or a brace. This is me starting to say that out loud.